Insurers generated a little less premium from new individual disability insurance policy sales in 2020, but they ended the year covering more people.
Gen Re has provided an update on the individual disability market in a summary of results from an issuer survey. Sixteen insurers sent Gen Re data.
The number of new policies sold fell 11%, to 245,851, and premiums from the new policies fell about 7%, to $399 million.
Gen Re says the drop in new sales is due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Even though most carriers were able to adjust their internal processes to address the challenges of COVID, producers still struggled to close sales without having the ability to meet their clients face-to-face," the company says.
Despite the drop in new sales, an increase in the number of people who kept policies already in force helped insurers increase the total number of people covered by individual disability insurance by about 1.2%, to 3.1 million people, according to Gen Re.
